Ew, Cindy, get a towel! No one reading today’s strip saw you walk in from the rain so it looks like you’re sweating like a racehorse while heaving your chest and panting at Funky. It’s not a good look for you. It’s not a good look for anyone. And with Funky’s stupid answer that would have me back out the door and into the snowy–err, rainy generic Westview day.

19 responses to “Sweaty Work”

Yeah, this Interwebz thing is just a passing fad, right? I mean, it’s not like there are a large number of web-based companies in a variety of fields, particularly Cindy’s particular discipline of journalism and media…

I assume by the expression on her face and the extremely odd close up that Batiuk intends his audience to react to “internet company” the same as we would to “Nazi-run child labor puppy processing facility”. Of course since we’re all internuts I doubt anyone’s reading it that way.

Yes, the Internet is very a miserable place. So miserable, in fact, that TWO dramatic, full-sized panels worth of heavily inked lines and soap-opera-esque dialogue were used to properly convey the overwhelming misery and overall despair that could *only* be caused by such a thing as the Westviewian Internet. The concept of working for an Internet company has finally caused Funky to lose his mind. Now it’s Cindy’s turn….

“The internet is not a business model”…yeah Tom, and that sentence isn’t a joke or a punchline either. What the hell is it even supposed to mean? Tom Ban’s trying to be smug and “topical” here with his latest little jibe at The Internet but it just makes him seem bitter and woefully out of touch with reality.

Taking lame shots at The Internet because there’s something you dislike about it is like being mad at The Outside because you were stung by a bee. Stop being such a whiner and do the anti-snark blog arc you’re dying to do or STFU about it already. There’s a certain wussified snide obnoxiousness to this strip that really set my teeth on edge. It’s like throwing a water balloon into a crowd of people and running away before you see who it hits. Follow through for once and take a few pokes at a real target, not the nebulous “internet”.

The logic behind this sweeping generalization is, sadly, obvious: It doesn’t matter if it’s “I, Tom Batiuk, cannot drum up interest in my boring, badly-written, implausible and self-indulgent comic strip via the internet therefore the information superhighway is a lie” or “I, Funky Winkerbean, cannot drum up interest in my depressingly awful pizza place and its terrible product no matter how many apps someone smarter than I am creates therefore the Internet cannot be a business model,” the insistence that the system of tubes has to magically create interest in an inferior product to be acknowledged animates this mess.

It’s like how the whiny old guy on 60 Minutes said word processors were a scam because he still had to use his brain.

@Epicus Doomus: “Taking lame shots at The Internet because there’s something you dislike about it is like being mad at The Outside because you were stung by a bee.”

It’s also pretty much the bread and butter of most dead-tree comic strip artists. They know that the Web spells doom for them and their industry so they wanna take pot shots at what they can’t adapt to.

She she said “internet COMPANY” you MORON!!!! So YES, she IS talking about “a BUSINESS,” not just “a technical term”!!!!! Seriously, the gall of this hack to write this insultingly nonsensical dialogue every day.

And why on earth is Cindy still so fond of Funky? One of the number one reasons the marriage failed and he went off the deep end was because he was extremely jealous and petty regarding her TV career. For a guy constantly lecturing about how he wants his comic strip to be “more like real life,” this is NOT what a post marriage relationship would even remotely look like in this type of situation.

In line with that, one of the worst, vomit worthy Cindy lines when the jump started back in early 2008 was when Cindy and the others visited Funky at one of his inexplicable NY chain stores and someone asked something to the effect if Cindy was dating anyone. She said no, then in the last panel, 30/40 year old Cindy smiled down on 60 year old looking Funky saying “Once you’ve had the best you forget the rest” with a completely-undeserving-of-that-line Funky looking up at her with a sappy smile on his fat, ulgly and unnaturally aged face.

Seriously, everything in this town revolves around Montoni’s pizza and comic books. That’s been said a million times here by others but it’s mindblowing how true that is and what a bizarre and obsessive “writing” crutch it is for Batiuk.

Oh yeah, and Funky, “the non-business entity known as the internet” called and told you to fire Darren and get rid of that now apparently even more useless than before pizza app that he made for you.

Cindy started the week by saying that she had a business question for Funky. That was her first mistake. Why she needs business advice from a guy who had to close half of his pizza shops, had an app developed no one uses and apparently only has six customers, I’ll never know. By the way, Cindy, good luck at Huffington Post.

@billytheskink: Oh, yes. THAT imbecile. “I, Prince Rogers Nelson/Prince/Symbol that can’t be pronounced, cannot wield the obsessive control my nature as a high-strung and possibly insane narcissist demands over the Internet therefore it is a lie.”